Twice in the past week, I have caught a glimpse Mount St. Helens blowing dainty white plumes into the pastel winter sky.

Seismically it's been an unusually hyperactive year for the entire globe. From the exuberant dome-building of Mount St. Helens, to the nightmare tidal waves in Indonesia, dozens of tectonic events crowded into the world news over the course of 2004.

Officially, the anecdotal sense that the year was overwhelmed with fracture, vibration, death and upheaval is only a coincidence. But, the science of plate tectonics is young, and geologists are just beginning to gather evidence that even distant episodes of geologic movements may be related - that the shifting of faults in one location may have repercussions clear to the other side of the globe. This revolution in the understanding of earth sciences is in keeping with James Lovelock's famous Gaia Theory. Gaia Theory asserts that the Earth is not an inert, lifeless space boulder that just happens to be covered with a mass of individual living organisms, but that the planet is a singular cohesive living system. This system involves, not only the verdant coating of life we call the "biosphere", but also the oceans, atmosphere, and mineral ground on which we stand.

Somehow, it seems only sensible that every geologic shift resonates throughout the globe. An erupting volcano in Washington is part of the same energetic ripple that fractured the bottom of the Indian Ocean. It makes me stop and wonder how I can be enjoying the dreamy plume drifting along Portland's jagged eastern horizon, while corpses of children are still being dragged from the mud choked ruins of south-east Asia. But it is the snow decked mountains and the sharp January air that remind me, even in the dark chill of winter, that the gift of life is still with us, and of it's beauty.

For more information on plate tectonics and Gaia Theory, visit:
http://gnn.tv/headlines/headline.php?id=613
http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/lovelock211.htm